Fifth Beatle

Uncommon card · No. 97081

The fifth Beatle is an informal title that has been applied to people who were at one point a member of the Beatles or who had a strong association with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The term originated in 1964 with the American disc jockey Murray the K, who pronounced himself the "fifth Beatle" due to the amount of promotion and coverage he afforded the band on his radio programme. In the 2024 film Beatles '64, directed by David Tedeschi and produced by Martin Scorsese, Harrison is seen questioning Murray the K's original proximity to the group. The band's members have offered their own views as to who should be described with the title. McCartney said in a 1997 interview that "if anyone was the fifth Beatle", it was manager Brian Epstein, and later applied the honorific to producer George Martin in a 2016 memorial post. Harrison said at the Beatles' 1988 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that there were only two "fifth Beatles": Derek Taylor...

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